Thursday, January 17, 2008

Teleportation: fact or fiction?

Making someone vanish in New York and appear an instant later in Tokyo is way beyond current technology but just might be possible in the far future, physicists told an audience at MIT attending a preview and panel discussion about the movie Jumper on Wednesday.

Actor Hayden Christensen and director Doug Liman were at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, US, to show scenes from the upcoming movie and to discuss it with physicists Max Tegmark and Edward Farhi.

In the film, a young man played by Christensen discovers he has the ability to instantly teleport himself across the globe. He uses the ability to rob a bank before getting caught up in a war pitting other "jumpers" like himself against a group that wants to kill them. Click on the image below to watch the trailer.

I was expecting the physicists to say that trying to teleport something as complex as a human being would be totally out of the question. So I was surprised when they said they wouldn't rule it out, even if it is way beyond current technology.

Physicists have teleported individual particles of light called photons across distances of more than 3 kilometres, according to Farhi (below, right), who heads MIT's Center for Theoretical Physics, and have also teleported particles of matter such as electrons.

He said that it should not be too difficult to increase the distances to thousands of kilometres or even interstellar distances, but that teleporting something as complicated as a human, as opposed to single particles, would be much more difficult.

"That really is pretty far down the line," he said. "A living creature probably has 1030 [1 followed by 30 zeros] particles in it … and to get all the information about that to some distant location looks really pretty formidable. I cannot see that as something in the reasonable future."

Farhi also pointed out two limitations of this technique, which is called quantum teleportation. One is that it requires particles to be sent ahead of time to the location you want to teleport to. These particles are what take on your essence to reconstruct you in this location when you are teleported. Secondly, even quantum teleportation takes time – the signal that carries the information used to reconstruct you cannot move faster than the speed of light. However, if it were one day possible to teleport a person, down to the quantum state of each of their atoms, he said the teleported person at point B should have exactly the same thoughts and memories as the person whose quantum state was destroyed at point A.

The other physicist on the panel, Max Tegmark (above, left), pointed out another possible way to transport things quickly across space-time. The laws of physics allow for the existence of "wormholes", which are distortions in the fabric of space that can link two distant locations.

If you could build and take such a shortcut, you could go faster than the speed of light and also time travel, Tegmark said. Unfortunately, he says, the trip could be quite gruelling, as wormholes tend to be quite unstable. "It could collapse into a black hole," he said, "which would be kind of a bummer."

Tegmark later asked Christensen how scientists could be more helpful to filmmakers. "Watch Jumper, get inspired by it, and get to work and figure [teleportation] out," he replied.

Given Christensen's previous role in the Star Wars series, the physicists were also asked to compare the scientific realism of that series with that of Jumper. "I would guess that you would have a light sabre weapon before you will teleport a person," Farhi said. Tegmark wondered how one would build a light sabre: "The only hard part about the light sabre is getting the laser beam to stop."

A few clips of Jumper were shown. I wasn't expecting anything great, because I had not been impressed by the trailer, which seemed higher on enthusiasm than impact. But the scenes we saw developed the story more and did a better job of drawing me in, even if they still seemed a little cheesy in places.

Having said that, I don't have a problem with a far-fetched premise if it makes for an enjoyable movie. I'm hoping Jumper will take the teleportation idea in interesting directions, but that remains to be seen.

While it may be true that the teleported person at point B should have exactly the same thoughts and memories as the person whose quantum state was destroyed at point A, it would notbe that person as they would have been destroyed. Others there at point B would be convinced it wasstill the person. The "new" person at point B would continue life, living, knowing what to do, what to think and so on because of allthe past memories hardwired inthe newly created, formed andduplicated body at point B.This living, breathing person would only be a copy having the same memories.If teleportation was possible it would only have value for the others there at B; they transportthe person who might be a worker,he arrives, does his job and the others for all practical purposeinteract with the same person wholeft point A. However, that person is gone forever, no doubt at all.

There are a number of hidden - and by no means obviously true - assumptions required to say that A no longer exists.

Firstly there is an implicit assumption that "physical continuity" is a necessary element of personal identity, secondly that this "physical continuity" is defined in quite limited terms (but rather too slippery to go into in depth here...),... seventeenthly that we are not actually living in a computer simulation (or more precisely *are* being simulated)... and so on.

There is a perfectly reasonable philosophical answer to most of the philosophical problems of identity raised by "cloning" (of the rather idealistic philosophical sought), quantum teleportation etc. ... unfortunately the margin is too narrow to hold it...

hmmm how about using a tachion to transmit the data at a faster than light rate,yes i know the data would be massive to collect but a ''buffer'' simalar to the one in a pc could collect the data before ''A'' is deleted and ''B'' is created.The far funnyer aspect would be if both ''A'' and ''B'' co existed leading to a photocopy effect and if the data was stored (lets face it dna can be saved on a pc as data these days, so the exact data used for transfer can be done as well i see no reason as to why not, you could reel off both ''A'' ''B'' and if needed the whole dammn alphabet.This tech is simalar to the replicator featured in a leading sci fi show but it would require massive data storage massive power and huge computing to be made possible and all for a bucket of chicken.... Another problem would be how you eliminate ''A'' i hardly think that version of mr jones would relish the idea of being shot or disintigrated nor would he prefer a 3 some with mrs jones and himself and ''B'',or if the inclination is diffrent it gives a whole new meaning to go **** yourself as this would make it achiveable

It's even much, much worse; at the receiving station not only the three coordinates XYZ must be known. For every atom, the chemical bonds have to be reestablished, too. If, say a Carbon atom was to be "mounted" into a DNA-molecule, it would have to be equipped with exactly the appropriate energy. This is in fact a chemical synthesis, although it might be performed with some kind of nano-scale ion gun.I wonder how long it would take alone to transmit the zillions of bits at any imaginable and reasonable bit-rate. Not even thinking of the horribly complicated work of synthesizing a human body out of some 10**30 single atoms.

Anonymous said "While it may be true that the teleported person at point B should have exactly the same thoughts and memories as the person whose quantum state was destroyed at point A,it would not be that person as they would have been destroyed." That leads to an interesting thought... Has anybody made a photocopy of a photocopy of a photocopy ad nausem??? The quality degrades with each copy. Granted we are talking about making copies at the atomic level, but even then quarks could be misplaced or dropped. I would surmise that after a number of "jumps" that the "existence of the person" would become degraded as well to the point that the organism would cease to be able to function; aka "die". Think about it, nature can't even make a perfect copy. The oldest living human on record has been 122 years of age and died of what biologists can only describe as old age. It was determined that the subject could not live any longer due to the degradation of DNA/RNA in cells due to the cellular replication.

1) i thought you couldn't teleport things because of the Heisenberg uncertainty.2) it doesn't really so much sound like teleportation as it does duplication, so what are they doing at point B? just taking existing atoms from the near by area and reassembling them to be exactly like the object at A to be duplicated? how can this be called 'teleportation' when it is not teleportation? its duplication. also why must the object at point A always be destroyed? the destruction of the object at A doesn't make it any more teleportation just because you've destroyed part of the evidence that its actually duplication. so in regards to physical continuity not having anything to do with identity, what if you leave the person at point a intact after the duplication? now you have two of them. surely this proves that yes, physical continuity IS linked with identity.3)how could they be teleporting single electrons? first there still the Heisenberg thing, and if all they are doing is rearranging the particles near point B, how do they rearrange a single electron. the guy saying they can teleport a single electron makes it actually sound like the actual electron at point A was transported in some way to B, which implies actual teleportation, not duplication. and again i thought Heisenberg said either (teleportation OR duplication) would be impossible.4)if john cramer's experiments turn up positive results, then faster than light transmission of data could actually be possible for the information of how to reassemble the person at the other end. http://faculty.washington.edu/jcramer/5) but you still have http://www.aip.org/history/heisenberg/p08.htm

What Heisenberg's Principle says is that you the more accurately you measure a particle's position, the less accurately you can measure the vector of its speed. However, it is a rather simple function, in which it is reasonably easy to calculate a "break even" point, when you have enough information about both the speed and the mass to recreate the quantum properties, without violating the Heisenberg principle. In other words, it is possible to make a "light" version of this measurement and still have enough information.As for biological continuity as an element of identity, the argument is not valid. Every day we lose millions of cells which are replaced by others. It is estimated that we change the whole of our skin and internal organs every 7-8 years. Yet, we don't lose our identity. After all, insulin created by humans and by yeast in fermentors has exactly the same 3d shape, which gives it exactly the same function. The same is true for all molecules, if you have exactly the same structure, you have exactly the same function. Thus, if you get the neurons and the neurotransmiters in exactly the same 3d position, the outcome will be identical to the prototype

Obviously, everything that we suggest here is based on our present knowledge of physics. But, if we're going to have some fun with this idea why don't we introduce an idea that already has practical uses.Quantum Tunnelling seems to me to be the best option for transferring quantum data. From what I remember of an article somewhere in the NewScientist the 'speed' of QT was 5000c! (I am willing to be corrected here as I am going from memory).From the little I understand of QT, a higher 'potential' is required for the particle to perform the necessary wave function and cross the 'barrier medium'.I don't personally see how faster than light travel equals time travel. After all why would passing the light cone of an event have any effect on causality?I don't think that the grandfather paradox can exist. It may be possible to view the birth of the light cone of an event by 'catching up' with its event horizon, but there is no way to interact with the event. In short I see no paradox in sending the information FTL.Presently we believe that an entity's quantum state or wave function is its ultimate irreducible form. If we assume that this is true then I see no problem with 'being the same person' at the other end.The photocopy example doesn't really fit here, the information would not deteriorate in the same way as an analoguous copy. I would compare it more to taking the individual letters from a book and transporting them all at once and rearranging them instantaneously at the other end into the words from which they originated. Then the information conveyed by the letters and words would be exactly the same. After all, reading this post you are not seeing the exact letters that I typed, they don't exist as matter. The information within is, however, exactly the same.I believe that the technology would be incredibly expensive and reqource hungry, but this again is an extrapolation of today's material technology.I think it may one day be possible, but, it may not be necessary. Far less complicated ways of travelling vast distances may be found. We may find that quantum information can be read. We may find that that wave form of the universe allows for direct alteration of the state of any given 'bit' of information that results in a quark or electron, hence 'tell' a particle where, when and how to be. I could see how this would eliminate some of the Star Trek style light beam teleporting.Ultimately, rather like a light sabre it may turn out to be possible but expensive and 'useless' compared with better cheaper solutions.I think that before this happens we will need1) More efficient energy sources and less reliance on wasteful mechanical technology. Eg. capturing a small precentage of the sun's output would propel us leaps and bounds.2) A closer understanding of the true nature of particles and their wave form information.3) A method of travelling at or above c.If I am correct only accelerating to the speed of light is prohibited by relativity, a velocity greater than c is perfectly acceptable. However, it is curious that gravity and and photons are limited to this somewhat slow speed (1.2 seconds to the moon, 8 and a half minutes to the nearest star, and that's our own backyard!).Tachyons are hypothetical and even if they exist I donlt think that they can be used to trasmit information. However, from the little I understand of the theory, it may just be possible to allow the Cherenkov ridation thet they transmit to infer information upon none imginary particles. I'm getting beyond myself there though.

Perhaps we should see the body as a cloud of energy, and we can only perceive the heavy condensed part. This being the case, it may be possible to direct this energy like a laser beam and it would, at the destination,under its OWN power of organisation, reconstruct into the cloud of energy that it always was.

I find it interesting that noone has talked about the book this was based on - it was a favorite of mine when I was younger. I was quite distraght to see what they've done to it.

To the the person who brought up tachions - these things have effectivly been shown to not exist, or if they do, they arn't lurking in any obvious ways. Do not discuss them as if they are scientific fact - they havn't been in fashion for 20 years.

Regarding the issue of "destruction of the original", the issue is that to copy something, you must access every aspect of it. In doing so, by copying it perfectly(by heisenberg's uncert. princ.), you completely anhilate the former object. It's not that teleportation is impossible on this basis(as asserted by one way-ward soul), but rather that cloneing is impossible. The basis for this is laid out in the aptly named "no-clone theorem".

The simple fact is that by the time you analyze one atom it and others have moved. So, unless you're willing to freeze the subject (which to date still can't stop atoms from vibrating) you have no chance. Also, it is duplication as the person who enters is no more.

I understand it's probably not the best time to raise the issue but is anyone here willing to submit that a human being is exactly the sum of his parts and nothing more? The difficulty of recreation of atomic structure is hard enough but even if it can be achieved, will such reconstructed being possess the same personality or even have a personality? Granted memories will be intact, but I'm not sure memories alone make us who we are. I'm just curious. I'm not saying that there is something more, I'm just not sure there isn't. Is anyone?

I would say that you could test the viability of teleportation by transporting 4 or 5 entangled qbits. If there state remains entangled at point B, then energy states can clearly be preserved at, what we presently consider to be, the fundamental level.A macro object to test would be a program running on a simple computer. Transmit the computer while running the program and see whether the program is still running at point B.Then maybe, dna that's coding proteins and neural silicon circuits.On a side note, a BBC Radio Two presenter (possibly Steve Wright) read out the news that scientists had managed to transport photons from one side of the lab to the other. Showing excellent insight he remarked that he had a device that had done this for years called a torch.

ok, when i used the duplication arguement to say that physical continuity was identity, maybe i didn't use the best wording, or maybe i misconstrued what the other guy meant by 'identity'. I totally agree that it seems like it would be possible to completely recreate the person, their personality, memories, etc, everything. basically the copy would be just like the original. but it is still a COPY. i'm not saying that that fact makes it inferior, just that if you destroy the original, you are killing a person, and that the copy is not the same person as the one you killed. i think the fact that you could just choose not to destroy the original and then you have two proves this. if they are the same person, ask one a question about what the other is doing and see if they can answer, from the other side of the galaxy. they can't, because they are two different people. and if you let them live for years they will develope totally different identities, and you could say that those seperate identities began diverging the moment after the duplication. the fact that the copy has the same exact background, personality, blablabla, as the original at the point of duplication does not change the fact that if you destroy the original you are killing a human being.I guess what i'm getting at is the stream of consciousness. The stream may pick up and continue flowing in the copy at the moment of duplication, identical at that moment to the flow of the original's. but when you destroy the original you are killing that particular stream of consciousness. i find it kind of chilling that people are apparently willing to call this teleportation and talk about it like its no big deal. lets say the machine doesn't automatically atomize the original right after its data has been read and sent to create the duplicate. would shooting it in the head and burning its body constitute finalizing the 'teleportation' for you? how do you even rationalize calling this teleportation? the only thing being teleported is information, NOT the body.

oh, i didn't see the post about, and wasn't aware of the no clone theorem. nor did i know that theoretically to do this requires the 'original' to be destroyed. i still don't think that changes the fact that a destruction took place, and i think people's willingness to try things like this without thinking about unforeseen consequences is an example of why the world is so messed up. the scientists of yesterday develope better ways to build more productive factories. the scientists of today preach global warming and blame america. while tinkering with this and other jaw dropping stuff, and probably with the same devil may care attitude as some of you posters. then the scientists of tomorrow bitch about whatever bad shit those of today CAUSED. its ironic. but keep it up by all means.

Imagine being told to teleport to station Gamma Psi. You walk to a loud building. Wait in line and stand on a platform. Searing pain as you body is radiated and hearing the machines go to work as your other "self" arrives at his/her location. The operator tells you that teleportation was successfull. Then he directs you towards the incinerator. Time to die.Or.Your body tingles before your neurons disconnect from your nervous system. Then you never feel anything again.

Either way, your copy will continue to be. But you are no longer.

Not worth it in my opinion.

But I agree with the tired one... Much easier when we accept we are already there.

"It seems like consciousness is a product of the brain. Change the brain and you change the consciousness. Change the memories, and you can change some of the behavior. What do you think happens every day? You change a little bit, and you can never go back.

The you that you are right now is very short lived. Tomorrow, he or she will be dead, and will be replaced by a very similar doppleganger. Your friends and family won’t notice. The imposter will be completely convinced that he or she is the original. It will have access to all of your memories–even your memories of what it feels like to be you right now.

Of course it will be convinced that it is the real you, it remembers thinking what you are thinking now. Or rather, it will have the memory of what you are thinking now. Just like you have the memory of what yesterday’s you was thinking then.

But it isn’t the same person. It isn’t the same consciousness.

You die every day.

You won’t be driving this body around tomorrow. That’ll be some other guy who has all of your memories. You don’t worry about this because you have the memory of having lived yesterday and the day before, ad infinitum. But you are just like the copy who gets up out of the teleporter. He was just created two seconds ago, yet is totally convinced that he is the original. He only has the memories of a lifetime. You only have the memories of having lived yesterday. You have memories of many days. You have the illusion of continuity.

You die every day. The poster should be changed from, “This is the first day of the rest of your life.” to:

i can see to what a lot of people are getting to here. I feel this form of teleportation is possible with non living objects. but living objects a few complications arise. Well looking at the technique that has been spoken in comments, where we make an exact copy of the original. Ok i understand that but the copy is a separate living entity, it may be exactly like me but not the same living entity. Lets take life as a time line. So when we teleport, the newly formed person on the other end will have to occupy a new time line. So if i get to live then this is not called teleportation its just a human copying machine. But if i were to die during copying then i am dead, the world thinks i am still alive, but me as a living entity am dead. So i will be on my way to heaven or hell, were as my copy still lives. If thats teleportation that means to teleport you have to kill yourself. Another more probable way would be to break me down to atomic level and stream the atoms to the destination where the machine will just piece the atoms back together. then what happens if there is interference or signal loss and we lose some of the atoms on the way? I dont want to think about that. I feel scientists need to do more experiments to understand things like conscience, and life. Simple experiment would be freeze a living object and see if they can be revived after a few months. Then break the living being up in to chunks then rearrange then back again and see if it works the same. But if you look at this, the main problem is going to be to see if the person we just revived is the same person, i mean, how do we know the person we froze didnt died during freezing or after being frozen and the person we just revived is another person exactly like him. If we look at this when we revive the person its just giving birth to a new born baby, the revived person will occupy a new time line. I feel we can never measure whether the person is occupying the same time line and we will never know, because only the people who are frozen will ever know but will die, but to us they are still alive, it may be heralded as a huge leap for science and many will adopt this technique to preserve them self not knowing they are committing suicide. So one day in the future you decide to freeze your self once frozen you are dead and that s it. But to the world you are still frozen and alive.

The point which I was most interested in while reading this was about the original dying

My opinion, having thought this out for a full 7 minutes, is that by transporting and creating a new, your original ceases to exist.Yes I know it was said many times in this topic but it seems like some people dont grasp it

If teleported, what you are now, what thinks, is merely copied and pasted on to the other side!

If perfectly copied, the copy would have the same thoughts, memories, ways of acting as you didIt would also remember moments before getting teleported.However what interests me is no matter how perfectly copied it is, it is still not YOU.You are dead. According to this topic, you have been destroyed in order for a copy to have been made.

So basically in teleporting, it's almost like a strange suicide that evens outYou, what you are now, dies. And yet somehow will appear in another place identical to you in every way but will still not be you

Is this to say the soul/consciousness cannot truly be copied. It really is a massive dilemma because once been destroyed, can your exact state of thought on the moment of transportation be the same as when you arrive.In a way yes, you've been perfectly copied(assume so). In another way no, you've been destroyed.It would be interesting to see other people's thoughts on this without been too harsh in your critisims of it!

Since my most recent post, preceeding one by Nikhil Sadalkar,I have come up with another possibillity.

Ours cells are replaced constantly,so eventually we are completely replaced. (many times over and over again during our lifetime).What continues in the replacement (not always to a perfect degree) is a "copy" of our DNA in the replacement cells.

Based on this (and setting the concept of "Consciousness" aside for a min) it basically is our DNA that lasts for our entire life; a unique copy different somewhatfrom any other person.

If we make a copy, the technologyrequired to perform this would most likely make a more exact(hopefully perfect)copy than what happens durning normal cell replacement.Therefore in essense we should have moved our DNA to the other location.(at leasta copy of it).

Now back to "Consciousness".Please refer back to my previous posting, just before Nikhil's.More info is at the website of the inserted address, but it did not show as a clickable link after I entered it here.

The person was talking about what happens when we go to sleep at night and at that time our brainchanges structure somewhat while at that time we are basically not consciousness, and then when we awake, are we really the same person?

Where I am going with all this is,if we accept the possibilitythat consciousness "is only anillusion", then it does not make any difference what we do with the original. This concept rejects the idea of a soul or anykind of afterlife.

Bummer if consciousness reallyis only an illusion generatedentirely by the brain as manypeople believe.

After a few more posts by others I'll have another interesting twist on all this.

Consciousness cannot be a mere illusion as to be susceptible to an illusion requires some conscious perception in the first place.cognito ergo sum.What is interesting is the physical interface/dependencies on the qualia of consciousness.Are we really unconscious during deep sleep? I heard that nobody truly understands how general anaesthetics work: chloroform, xenon, nitrous oxide etc, are all chemically very different but have the same kind of ionising effect on neural cells.

This topic has not been forgotten just some posters have lost their enthusiasm and think all has already been said.

I want to start an X-prize challenge for the principal of teleportation. There will be 3 phases of the challenge: A) molecular level scanning into a storage system expected size 10e30 bytes, Inert, organic and living samples in 1 second, B) tranmission of the storage values (10e30 bytes) to another storage facility in 1 second, C) re-assembly of objects indisinguishable from the original samples in 1 second.

There will be many huge spin-off benefits from this type of challenge.

The person at point B would not be the same as person A, but so what? We change constantly, as others have explained, but still manage to use the memories of our previous selves to carry on as if we didn't change. The person at point B would carry on as if it was person A. It would go on to accomplish what person A wanted to accomplish by duplicating himself at point B. The original would go on to accomplish something different (I can't imagine many people would want to die just because they were duplicated).

The person at point B would not be convinced he was the original. He would see he was in a new place without physically going there so he would deduce that he is a duplicate. But, again, so what? For all practical purposes, they are both the same person, just accomplishing twice as much. However, they would become different people as time went on because they would have different experiences.

I was raised to believe in God, so I used to wonder what would happen to the spirit of a person who was teleported or duplicated, but I don't wonder now because I'm now certain God does not exist.

If it was to become possible to know this much information about a living person, store it, and somehow duplicate it, would it not mean that we could dispense with our biological bodies, move our consciousness into a digital realm, travel the universe stored on hard drives, then reconfigure into biological bodies of our choosing, and at our convenience, and thus basically live for ever??

I knew the 2moons dil so I always try my best to earn them more and more to make myself strong. I have never played the game before, at the beginning I did not know what is so I went to kill the monsters with the 2moons gold that I earned with myself in the game. I will duty bound to a friend to help brush the 2moon dil together with my friends. I spend a good relationship is then fly to tears. If my levels are very high, I can go to buy 2moons dil more and more and I will not depend on my friends to help me to earn them. I get some cheap 2moons gold as the gifts to encourage me.